[Sca-cooks] posting copyrighted works - a clarification

[Lonnie D. Harvel]

>> Elaine Koogler wrote:
>>
> Of course you must do as you feel best.  However, I don't believe
> posting material here is a violation of fair use as we are a non-profit
> organization and the purpose is purely educational.

No. No. You misunderstood me! Posting and using material from books is
fine in this setting, it is a matter of ratio. Reproducing some of a work
is acceptable. If the percentage of the overall text goes to high, you are
getting close to copyright infringement. Since the Savelli book is so
small, 8 or so recipes would be getting into the gray area. The rule of
thumb(s) we use when creating course material at GT are:

single chapters
single articles from a journal issue
several charts, graphs or illustrations
other similarly small parts of a work.

So my hesitation is not an absolute "do not post copyrighted works" it is
a heuristic "do not post a significant portion of copyrighted works". Of
course, there is also the "variation on works" clause as well. I have no
problem posting recipes that I have adapted to my own use. Though I do
feel obligated in crediting the original that provided the inspiration.

As a side note... Since the SCA is chartered as an educational
organization, the ethics rules in my faculty contract extend to my
activities here. Though it is highly unlikely that I would get fired for
posting too many copyrighted recipes, plagiarism is a whole different
issue. Steal other peoples ideas and creations is a heinous crime in the
academic culture (except for costume design, where it is a time honored
tradition). Given the number of recent incidents in the US academic
community, I am probably a bit over-sensitive to the issue.

Pax,
Aoghann